Because you did not know the word for jet lag that trip
in Barcelona when the night was swamping under our arms
and eyelids along with an awareness of oblivion (so
tired the beautiful city is like a carousel of fiberglass horses,
nothing will stay), you kept saying mareada. Correct enough.
Seasick on the cobblestones, tapas behind a thin wall
in like-minded cliques: peppers with peppers, tentacles
with mantles and so on. We fell into bed at an hour
and died, thin sheets a pall over our sheen. From outside,
a haunted lowing that sounded like opera, but stuck
in the throat of a bird. Barcelona eventually righted.
We eventually regained our sense of composure
enough to make memories. Or at least call a thing
its proper name in the eyes of illness. Thank god
humans barely remember how bad something feels.
What is left is merely soul loss. What is left is the afternoon
we wound Montjuïc, lapping our delighted tongues
around the forgiving bodies of ice cream cones.
Startled only by the avian aria that began every day
at two. Closer, this time. You cast your gaze heavenward
like St. Lucy. Alighted on a terrace with a gilded
cage, the eyes of the African gray parrot waiting
to catch yours. Silence. You drop your cone. You open your mouth.